myCopter Project Report

Abstract

Against the background of constantly growing ground-based traffic and consequently increasing congestion problems, solutions have to be found for meeting the future demand of personal transportation. The European project myCopter, running from 01/2011 to 12/2014, has faced this challenge by investigating the implementation of a personal aerial transportation system. The project goal was to investigate technologies that are required to provide Personal Aerial Vehicles (PAVs) to the general public. These PAVs must have vertical take-off and landing capabilities like helicopters to be used even in densely populated city centers but at the same time must be as easily maneuverable as cars in order to be flyable by the general public. The idea of PAVs is not new, though. Several other projects have been aiming at developing rotorcraft prototypes for future personal air transport. The myCopter project is different from most other PAV projects as the actual design of a specific PAV was not in the focus of myCopter. Instead, selected technological approaches have been investigated that are critical for the implementation of a personal aerial transportation system. Apart from socio-economic aspects and autonomous flight capabilities, human-machine interfaces and vehicle handling characteristics have been investigated. In order to verify selected technologies developed during the project, DLR used ground-based and in-flight simulation. The project has received funding from the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (grant agreement no. 266470) under the full project title “myCopter - Enabling Technologies for Personal Aerial Transportation Systems”. The project’s homepage is to be found at www.mycopter.eu. This document compiles the internal and external myCopter reports that were completed by DLR during the years 2011 to 2014. Additional reports that were completed by project partners are added if they are relevant for the DLR contribution.